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Full Version: The Great Healing: learning to love yourself, unconditionally
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This has been, for me, a *profound* insight into an overarching spiritual goal of third density.

It is nothing new compared to what Ra and Q'uo have stated.  But I have encountered it more directly, have recognized its overarching importance as a core Lesson we all must learn in order to transcend this illusion and move up.

The lesson is: Unconditional love for oneself.

It does not mean approving of, or excusing what we do not like about ourselves.

It does mean reacting to every perceived fault, failing, or problem of any kind with unfailing kindness toward oneself.

Within every challenge we encounter is an opportunity: the opportunity to use that challenge as a stepping stone for spiritual growth, that is, movement toward a permanently greater state of well-being.

The opportunity in *any* form of distress is to react to it with compassion toward oneself.  That is efficient use of the catalyst.  Without being unconditionally loving toward oneself, it becomes impossible to sustain love toward others.

Forgive yourself first.  Again, this does not mean excusing the behavior; it does mean: deciding not to be an enemy to yourself, not to criticize or blame or punish, despite the perceived fault or misstep. 


Forgiving ourselves opens the door to reacting to any problem with kindness and support towards ourselves.  This, spiritually, is an incredibly powerful practice - even if it does not immediately appear to produce results perceptible to our conscious minds.

Whatever the external issue may be that bothers you - eg, problems at work, interpersonal conflict, COVID anxiety, financial worries - anything at all - there are two parts to it:
1) the issue outside of yourself
2) the opportunity to use it as a step towards greater unconditional love for yourself.

It is easy to lose sight of the second one, but it is the most important.  Difficulties will come and go; the spiritual growth you attain is permanent.

Here is the practice.
When any kind of emotional distress arises:

Set aside, just for the moment, the external situation and take time, at your earliest convenience, to deal with the emotional state you are experiencing.

Whatever the emotion is, relax into it.  There is, inside you, a part that's in distress.  You, the one who is noticing the distress, can either go along with it, buy into it, act on it -- OR, you can meet it with kindness and compassion.

Allow the distress to flow through you.  *Be kind* to the parts of you that are in distress; don't argue with them or try to convince them that they shouldn't feel the way they do - but also, don't buy into their distress or fear.

Instead, love on them. Sit with them, comforting them inside yourself; reassure them; treat them with love and kindness.

That is all that’s needed; do not worry about whether or not they accept that caring, whether or not they relax or go away.  

The closer you come to being able to do this, *regardless of circumstances or fault*, the closer you will have come to being able to love others unconditionally.

Adonai.
Thank you for sharing that.
Totally agree Stranger.

I think the most useful tool to deal with 3rd density is to take a step back when feeling unbalanced. Just stop, breathe, and reflect. I think this is what really initiates progress, and gives the ability to feel unconditional love towards self, as I feel that most negative emotions, even seeming to be projected on another entity, is in the end anger or hate against the self, first and foremost.
flofrog, I completely agree - people who are angry with themselves will express anger toward others; people frustrated with themselves will feel frustration toward others; people feeling inadequate and critical of themselves will criticize others. If we want to have something positive to share with each other, we need to fill ourselves with it first.
They say to love someone unconditionally, you have to love yourself unconditionally.

So does that mean if I love someone infinitely/unconditionally that I love myself that way too?
Beautiful thoughts Stranger,

What we reject, we project, as they say.

The beauty of unconditional love is that it does not look for what is acceptable and unacceptable. It only looks, and so our ability to truly see only grows.
(11-09-2020, 11:42 AM)Stranger Wrote: [ -> ]Within every challenge we encounter is an opportunity: the opportunity to use that challenge as a stepping stone for spiritual growth, that is, movement toward a permanently greater state of well-being.

The opportunity in *any* form of distress is to react to it with compassion toward oneself.  That is efficient use of the catalyst.  Without being unconditionally loving toward oneself, it becomes impossible to sustain love toward others.

Forgive yourself first.  Again, this does not mean excusing the behavior; it does mean: deciding not to be an enemy to yourself, not to criticize or blame or punish, despite the perceived fault or misstep. 

Such potent learning for me. A core lesson that my conditioning obscures to my vision again and again. So much of discipline is simply a reminding of the self to turn the attention toward love and light. Other-selves who share these reminders of insight with others are a helpful boon to that self-discipline. Thank you, Stranger.

Btw, the depth of self-responsibility you describe in processing one's catalyst reminded me of this Thich Nhat Hanh quote that a friend recently posted:


Quote:"A monk decides to meditate alone.

Away from his monastery, he takes a boat and goes to the middle of the lake, closes his eyes and begins to meditate.

After a few hours of unperturbed silence, he suddenly feels the blow of another boat hitting his. With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising and, when he opens his eyes, he is ready to shout at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was an empty boat, not tied up, floating in the middle of the lake ...

At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that anger is within him; it simply needs to hit an external object to provoke it.

After that, whenever he meets someone who irritates or provokes his anger, he remembers; the other person is just an empty boat. Anger is inside me."

- Thich Nhat Hanh
Lyrics from The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYzlVDlE72w

. . .
the greatest Love of all is happening to me.
I found the greatest
Love of all inside of me

The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all

And if, by chance, that special place
That you've been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love
I came across a relevant transcript from a channeled conversation between me and a trusted guide. I found it insightful - may it help you on your journey, too. The lines beginning with ' are my statements; the rest are replies.

-----
[Woke up with an area of intense anxiety under my left ribcage. Took time to purely love and comfort it; suddenly, in a moment, it was completely gone.]

Hi, [Stranger]. begin with your questions please.

'Help me understand the experience of my anxiety in the left side suddenly ceasing.

Excellent, [Stranger] - I am very pleased by your question, because it is indeed important. Your anxiety was the result of an unresolved blockage; the blockage has since resolved, and the experience of anxiety was no longer present as a result. What else can I tell you?

'Help me understand why and how the blockage resolved.

The blockage resolved, being no longer necessary to your experience, [Stranger]. As such, it was serving no purpose and was "cleaned up" by its governing entity. That is the truth. What else can I tell you?

'Why was it no longer necessary and what made it so?

It was no longer necessary because it was no longer serving a useful function, [Stranger]. Its function had been to prompt you to meet it with love, that is the truth. The function fulfilled, it ceased to remain useful to you.

'Can you help me understand the entire topic you are circling around, please?

I can. Listen carefully now.
Your "blockage" was a system of thoughts and feelings, born in anguish about a particular aspect of life, that is the truth. The aspect had to do with fear of failing, that is the truth. It had been triggered by your fear of [the possibility of getting a particular major life decision wrong].

There are two ways to relate to a burden like that - yes, I do mean the emotional aspect of the situation when I say "burden": you can either see from it [ie, looking at the world through its lens - buying into the fear], or you can look at it [ie, seeing the fear itself as the issue to work on, regardless what external circumstance the particular fear is about]. The latter is ever the more useful approach, leading as it can - and does - to insight and growth in the most profound sense of that word: the spiritual sense. That is all the Truth, [Stranger] and do not doubt it.

Second point: you chose the latter. You lay in bed, awake, present with that burden, and you gave it Love, consistently, for a period of about 15 minutes. In that time, the process of healing began and completed. No, it wasn't only your love that did it, [Stranger]. As I have already stated, the part of you governing such things recognized that the lesson, so to speak, had been learned and the textbook can be discarded; and you have done so now.

You are currently asking me to elaborate and I shall; but first, let me answer the question you had but put out of your mind in the last few seconds: why did this occur?

The reason is simple, [Stranger]. *All* burdens have, as their function, the learning of a specific lesson. It is indeed well-concealed - the lesson is - beneath the superficial features of the burden, which may seem to be about a house or car or relationship, etc. It is always - I repeat, *ALWAYS* - about your relationship to God underneath that superficial "covering." That is the truth.

Is your relationship to God based on anxiety, or Love? By choosing Love, you choose oneness with Him; and the rest - the superficial covering - is able to fall away, no longer being a useful *vehicle* for your journey closer to that Oneness. That, [Stranger], is why the burden of anxiety was suddenly - in your perception - removed from your emotional configuration and, therefore, your emotional experience, liberating you from the tension and discomfort it had produced.

What else can I tell you?

'Is the function of all burdens to prompt the person to meet the burden with love?
Not all, but most. There are other functions. For example: the function of some burdens is to reach the depth of suffering required for an individual to *choose* to take a different path, [Stranger]; that is the truth. Those burdens would not be released by being met with love - but would be released by a more systemic change in one's approach to the catalyst of life as a whole, [Stranger]. That is the truth.

'Do I have any such burdens?
You do not. You are correct in recognizing that you did; having served that function successfully, they too fell away.

'Burdens seem to serve the function of an electric fence [on both sides of the road], keeping the cattle on the straight path?
Indeed so, despite your unfortunate analogy which denies the Love with which all of these wheels, so to speak, have been set into motion. That love surpasses understanding, [Stranger]; it is exceptional in its purity and goodwill, despite what you perceive as its harmful consequences. That is the truth.

'Are there any other lessons in burdens?
The lessons are infinite in number, that is the truth. It is important to recognize that Love is the solution to all of these "exercises", however. That is the truth!

'Are you saying that if one takes the time to meet any burden with loving attention, the burden will fall away?
That is precisely correct, [Stranger]. Adonai.